“Do what? Worry me to fucking death or kiss me? Be specific.”
I pull my face out of my hands. “Sorry.”
His cheek lifts and the smile he gives me afterward is lazy but comforting. Neither makes me stop holding my breath until his deep voice rumbles from underneath me.
“Not even gon' lie, that shit was hella mid. You can’t kiss for shit, baby.”
Babycomes out slow and my stomach jumps like he just told me some real player shit—not that I’m a terrible kisser. That block in my brain clears and I almost hear him calling me that at another time and in another place.
Baby.
I inhale his smell from his shirt and my mouth lifts into one of those half-smile half frowns. “Forget you. I was drunk.”
We laugh together in quiet huffs and a sharp pain shoots through my head.
He drops his phone beside us with a thump. “Yeah... you were real drunk.”
Afterward, his fingers jump to my braids. They push into my scalp in soft circular motions and I hear in his words that I did more. It’s in the “baby” he mumbled and in the satisfaction of his admission that I was a terrible kisser.
“What else did I do last night?” I whisper.
Pushing the words out is torture and waiting for his answer is even harder.
“You told me you hated Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne?” I frown. “Who’s that?”
He swallows, tilting his head. “The girl who made somebody like Blake Harvey believe that my wildest dream is to play in the NBA.”
Attaching a name to a scandal is another feeling I can’t pinpoint. I just know that it’s not satisfaction because I hear the weight of her accusation in Ace’s voice. For the first time, I wonder how it feels to carry that weight on his shoulders.
“Is it true? You hate her for real?”
My mouth hangs open again.
Mama wasn’t lying when she told me how blunt alcohol makes folks.
I nod, but I wish I could shout that shit into a mic with thousands of people watching, like DJ G5. This moment isn’t how I always imagined it in my head. It’s messy.
“I—I... shouldn’t hate the girl,” I stutter out. “It’s just now that I knowallof you I—I can’t see how you could ever do something like that to somebody.”
All the seconds, minutes, hours and days spent tiptoeing around this girl and now I know her name. It’s not as opulent as I expected, but that’s what happens when I let my imagination fill in the grey areas of reality. She’s not “that white girl” anymore. She’sCheyenne.
He pushes his forehead against mine, twisting my braids between his fingers while I wait on him to tell me he’s innocent and promise me that Cheyenne is a liar. Instead, he croaks out something even worse.
“I’m sorry.”
It isn’t, “I didn’t do it” or “I did it, but it was a mistake.” It’s not even a hint, but my mind doesn’t care about rational shit when I’m existing on Planet Ace.
“What you so sorry for?”
“That I can’t take you to a basic ass frat party, carry your drunk ass to the girls’ bathroom and make out with you there without her ghost haunting you.”
It’s all about me and not her and I don’t know what to do but to open my mouth for him in all the ways he taught me.
“Ason...” I whine.
He smiles, pushing his mouth against mine.
